Joe writes: The Greentree Festival at Kirkwood in St Louis, MO
on Sep 15-16 was worthwhile. Thanks to Rick who helped me on both the
days and Mare who helped at various times on Sunday. And thanks to Eric,
who helped me at the booth in the Festival of faith and culture event at
Belleville, IL on Sep 8, which was also very worthwhile too.

At the Belleville event, people spent time asking us questions and
talking to us at our booth. We were able to give away 100 booklets of
“Are We Good Stewards” and also the other booklets such as “Christianity
and Vegetarianism.”

At first, people seemed reluctant to approach our booth. Then I
decided we stand in front of our table and hand out our booklets, asking
people, “Would you like our booklet?” I was wearing the CVA T-shirt.
Some refused, but we were able to hand out 3 boxes of booklets. One man
was reading out booklet at the booth and he was impressed by the
contents and thanked us for doing this.

To find out about all upcoming leafleting and tabling opportunities
in your area, join the CVA Calendar Group at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group.christian_vegetarian/ . Read the home
page, and then join. You will then be able to log in anytime to identify
upcoming events in your region.

I was glad to see vegetarianism addressed in your July 13 issue
(Bernard G. Prusak, "All We Can Eat?"). Unfortunately, I found the
article itself disappointing. Prusak, who eventually rejects
vegetarianism, fails to address almost all the reasons that Christian
vegetarians would actually give for being vegetarian.

Foremost among these would be the Christian call to mercy,
compassion, and the proper stewardship of the world's resources. This
compassion is both for the innocent suffering of animals and for the
suffering of humans that a meat-based diet contributes to in numerous
ways. It takes, for example, an average of eight to twelve pounds of
protein in the form of grains and beans fed to animals to produce one
pound of animal protein. The remainder of this protein is lost to human
consumption. And the demand for meat by the world's wealthy means that
vast areas of many third-world countries are used to grow animal feed
while the people of these nations go hungry.

The negative ecological impact of a meat-based diet is similarly
enormous. According to a recent UN report, the livestock industry is
responsible for more greenhouse-gas emissions than all forms of
transportation combined. Researchers at the University of Chicago have
found that switching from a conventional meat-based diet to a vegan diet
saves more energy than switching from driving an SUV to driving a
hybrid.

Human health is another important concern. Many studies have shown
that vegetarians have significantly lower rates of cancer, heart
disease, diabetes, and other serious health problems. Choosing a
vegetarian diet is a powerful way of modeling God's love through
nonviolence, compassion for animals, care for the earth, care for our
bodies, and responsible use of the earth's resources.